Witness: Christie was told of bridge plot at 9/11 ceremony

NEWARK, N.J. — Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey was told about the George Washington Bridge lane closings during a Sept. 11 memorial service the week they were happening and that they were shut down to punish a mayor who had declined to endorse him, the man who orchestrated the closings testified in federal court here Tuesday.

The man, David Wildstein, recalled how Christie reacted with laughter, clearly appreciating the news. And upon learning the mayor’s calls were being met with silence, Wildstein said, the governor said in a sarcastic tone, “I imagine he wouldn’t get his calls returned.”

Wildstein, who has admitted being the culprit behind the lane closings in 2013, testified as prosecutors showed a series of photographs of him, Christie and Bill Baroni, then the governor’s top staff appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge, at a memorial service to mark the 12th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan.

The photos showed the three men in a loose huddle on a dirt pathway between the Sept. 11 memorial and the construction site for a tower rising at the World Trade Center site. Christie, who has previously said he did not recall the conversation, appears engaged and attentive, looking into Baroni’s eyes, raising his eyes and laughing in some frames, and reaching out his hands to the other two men.

“We were all very relaxed,” Wildstein testified.

“Were you and Mr. Baroni bragging?” Lee Cortes, an assistant U.S. attorney, asked.

“Very much so,” Wildstein said. “This was our one constituent. I was pleasing my one constituent. I was rather happy that he was happy.”

Christie joked about Wildstein’s role, he testified, using the name Wildstein had used in the past as an anonymous political blogger, Wally Edge. “Mr. Baroni said to Gov. Christie that I was monitoring the traffic, I was watching over everything,” Wildstein, a former Port Authority official hired by Baroni, recalled Tuesday. “Gov. Christie said in the sarcastic tone of the conversation, he said, ‘Well, I’m sure Mr. Edge would not be involved in anything that’s political.’”

Christie, a Republican, did not make any effort to intervene in the lane closings, which continued for two additional mornings and raised public safety concerns in Fort Lee, N.J., because of the catastrophic traffic jams caused by the shutdown.